Vegan Butternut Squash Lasagna w/ Cashew Cheese & Kale Pesto

March 3, 2015

Forget pasta. Yes I know that’s a bold statement, and no I am not drunk. I’m just gitty because of this vegan lasagna I made without pasta is all. Moreover, I didn’t even use cheese! I try to eat cheese in moderation… but that gets pretty hazy sometimes and I need a timeout. So in order to make sure that actually happens, having a batch of cashew cheese on hand is key and turns out it works perfectly here! Then, we have the pesto… I could eat pesto on anything and everything, so that was just an obvious choice and way more interesting than tomato sauce in my opinion.

I made a batch of this on a Sunday while hiding from the freezing cold tundra that is NYC right now, and the smells from the kitchen were pretty wonderful, it’s so comforting. It has the sweet, salty, creamy, gooey thing going on and is pretty easy overall to put together. I made both the pesto and the cashew cheese the night before to have on hand and then just had to roast the squash and assemble the next day! Aced it.

Ingredients:

gluten-free & vegan // serves 4-6

Squash (noodle replacement!)

1 medium-large butternut squash

2 tsp olive oil

Kale Pesto:

4 cups kale, ripped (no stems)

1-2 cloves garlic

2 tsp nutritional yeast

1/3 cup+ olive oil

dash of salt

dash of pepper

Cashew Cheese:

2 cups cashews (soaked in water for at least 2 hours & drained)

1/2 cup water

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp salt

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp nutritional yeast

Directions:

Make the cashew cheese first, submerge 2 cups of cashews in water and let sit for at least 2 hours to soften up. Drain cashews and add all cheese ingredients to a blender, mix until smooth and set aside.

Make the pesto next, mix all ingredients in a food processor, add more olive oil as necessary (I add maybe 1-2 tsp more). Set aside.

Pre-heat the oven to 450f degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Peel a butternut squash, and cut the bulb off and set aside. Half the top part and then cut into (approx. 1/4 inch thick) half-moon shaped slices. You should have enough for about 3 layers of the lasagna using an 8 inch dish.

Toss the butternut squash slices with 2 tsp olive oil and season with salt and pepper, arrange slices in a single layer on the baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes until tender.

Let squash cool for 10 minutes until you can handle the slices, reduce the heat to 350f degrees.

Lightly grease a glass dish or casserole dish and start by arranging the squash slices slightly overlapping. Next, add dollops of pesto all around, then the same for the cashew cheese. Add your 2nd layer and continue until you’re done, you may have a little pesto or cheese leftover depending on how much you use.

I love the idea of cashew cheese.. it’s something I’ve never tried before and you definitely have inspired me here to make it. This lasagna looks super delicious.. and it’s great that it’s so healthy too!

Oh wow!! I might add some zucchini and sliced tomato to mine!! What else do you use your cashew cheese for??? I see great promise for some butternut squash ravioli or portobello mushroom ravioli w a gluten free pastry dough. !!!

Those all sound like great ideas! Let me know how it turns out. I use cashew cheese as a sauce if you add more water to make it thinner and just used it in a new recipe I’ll post this week- ricotta pancakes! It’s so versatile and yummie! Oh also in place of sour cream on baked potatoes 😉

I’ve frozen pesto before, so I could definitely see doing that. You could probably freeze cashew cheese but it may get watery after it defrosts- I haven’t tried it. For the squash, you can chop them up and freeze them raw and save until you’re ready to cook.

I also made the pesto and cheese the night before and stored them in the fridge. I then made the squash the next day and assembled!

This was simply divine! I realized I only had 1 cup of cashews soaked but made it with the same ingredients and it was so tasty. I didn’t have a food processor for pesto but made it in my blender. It’s more liquidy that way as I had to add water but still worked out! My new recipe for Lasagna! Amazing! Thank you!

I think it depends on the size of the butternut squash as well as the dish you use. I used an 8 inch pyrex and had 3 layers as noted above – but over preparing never hurts! Having leftovers is always good 🙂

Hi! So happy you liked it! Nutritional yeast is a very common ingredient in vegan cheeses because it tastes similar to cheese. And the good news is… it’s nutritious hehe (spoiler alert with the name there). It makes a great topping/sub for Parmesan too.

I never comment on blogs, but this has become a favorite in our house so I decided to make an exception. So tasty and hearty! I add chili flakes to the pesto for a little kick and top the whole thing with sautéed shitake mushrooms. My bf asked for this basically once a week. Thanks for such a great recipe!